Two-Gun & Sun (32 page)

Now the bikes veered toward the cramped roads that housed the miners, where there were any number of hiding places. I followed with the crowd. The motorcycles roared down each alley and looped back onto Zero, then back again down the narrow roads, searching. I soon gave up. Vincent must be leaving with the opera boat. How else had Ben known about his plans?

I raced back onto Zero, dodging the crowds and the holes and the crossing bikes, I ran just as I had run when the airship crashed, this time in the dark of night with torches helping to light my way.

I was almost at the shore. The blaze of torches made the mist a mere veil. I could see the opera troupe's tramp steamer, scraped and varnished, could hear its newly fixed motor rumbling. On deck, Ben, in his brown pin-striped suit, paced, stopped to pull out his pocket watch, then paced some more. Up ahead, the Diva squeezed through the crowd and lumbered down the pier and up the ramp. Immediately behind her trooped Ben's old friend, along with the actor who played the sheriff, and a number of musicians, distinctive in their old black suits and with their black hair slicked back from their foreheads. The womanly curves of the cello in its case, followed by the violin, were carefully passed from player to player and then below decks, followed by the four musicians themselves.

I couldn't see Vincent at all.

A motorcycle pulled up in the swirling mist and Silver leapt out of the sidecar. I called his name and he turned, consternation all over his face at having to stop.

I've been meaning to thank you, I said.

For what?

For sending that foul deputy away. It was you, wasn't it? I was going to lodge a complaint about the man.

I was trying to stall Silver, and it worked. He accepted my thanks, and explained his actions, I saw you come flying out of that room, and I went in, and there he was, undone, and saying that about a fish head, Chrissakes. I threatened to fire him and thought that would be the end of it. But no. You're not the only one he tried to vulgarize.

I blinked at the odd turn of phrase, as well as at the comparison, especially now with me standing before him, unwashed, in my torn coveralls.

You mean Dee, I said. That happened long before. At the strike.

I know that now, but didn't at the time. I was elsewhere. Busy.

I didn't need to ask where.

So, he said, I ran him out of town.

It seemed to me the man left on his own, but perhaps Silver had done something to convince him.

As I was saying, I can't thank you enough for that.

Then his silver ant head snapped around. Chinese miners and maybe even extras from the opera, masses of them illuminated by the torches, burst through the grey and converged onto the beach, shouting and running, through the crowd and onto the pier, toward the boat.

Silver pushed past me and ran after them, shouting, What the hell you think you're doing?

They continued to bunch, so many of them that several were tipped off the edge of the wharf, a funnel of white spray against black as each body struck the surface, a sound of logs tumbling from skids into the water. I shoved past shoulders and knocked a couple of hats askew, their miner's lamps bobbing crazily, in my attempt to get closer so I could see. The Chinese, their soaked hair standing in dark spikes, waded their way knee-deep back to shore, wave upon wave of them. But Vincent was not among them, and neither was his leader.

Silver stormed back down the boards, boots pounding, and then onto the gravel beach, crunching over to me, again.

More of your friends, he shouted, arm flapping behind him to indicate the Chinese. Stupid bastards, he said, what are they trying to do?

I shook my head. I really had no idea.

They'll sink the boat, he cried, there's too many of 'em. And me, I'll catch bloody hell from Drummond if they don't show up for their shift.

He called out to two deputies and ordered them onto the wharf. He pointed at the Chinese. Don't let any of 'em get on board, he said.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, Cast off! Right now!

The crew of the opera boat scurried to pull in ropes and push off from the wharf.

A musician had re-appeared from below deck. He leaned on the steamer's railing to watch as pandemonium broke out on the pier and on the shore, deputies pushing Chinese and Chinese pushing back. A punch, a board broken from a railing, swung hard into a head, making the same pulpy sound as boys booting a pumpkin down a lane. Screams, then, and more boards torn free, more punches and kicks, whistles piercing the gilded air. I backed out of the way, up against a warehouse wall, my spine wedged into its corrugated ruts.

Silver climbed into a sidecar and two motorcycles kicked up gravel, herding the crowd away from the water and up the street, disappearing into a fog broken by tongues of flame. Motors roared, deputies and citizens ran back and forth, Lousetowners and regulars alike, shouts for torches in this direction and that.

Meanwhile, the little vessel inched away from the dock, steaming lustily, while another rose darkly behind it, larger and larger as it drew closer to shore. The midnight ship.

A breeze stirred over the water and the musician at the opera boat's railing stood taller and lifted his face. The tramp steamer was strung with lights and his face, paler than Ben's, was awash with the glow of the yellow bulbs, rendered featureless in the distance. Still, I could tell now, by the cut of his suit and hair and his English bearing, that he was no musician.

I breathed out my discovery in a long gasp to myself: It was their leader, Sun.

There had been an extra musician, I had noted that, four not three, but the significance of the fact had not sunk in. Who else recognized him? I swung around, but all eyes were on the approaching ship and the need to stop anyone from boarding it. I swivelled back again to watch the little boat, still listing to one side despite repairs. Sun stood alone at the railing, erect, calm, observing the struggle on shore while the little tramp steamer wobbled further up the inlet.

The struggle on shore was for him. They were causing a scene so that he could get away. What I wouldn't give to be standing beside him right now, recording his words in my notebook. He had achieved it at last, his people acting as one, and they were doing it for him.

I stepped forward, away from the building and onto the gravel, and then, on impulse, raised a forlorn hand and waved good-bye. It was my final attempt at communication with the leader, and it was successful. He waved back.

The midnight ship would dock soon. What of the one I had been waiting for? He, who from this moment onward I refused to name, for so many reasons but mostly for giving me all that I had wanted, and then leaving, and who, for all I knew, might have a Chinese name as well for me to decline. He had never said. I had never asked. Slowly, I lowered my hand.

A dislocation of air struck with the force of a cannonball. It was coming right at me. The clatter of hooves on stones, the ripe sweat of an overworked horse. The only one in town with a horse was Two-Gun, and I had words for him. I put a hand to my back, and waited.

It exploded through the fog, big and black and muscled, nostrils wide as craters, teeth a demonic grin, and thundered round me with each squeeze on its ribs from a pair of thick, white-trousered thighs.

You! I cried.

A long tail lashed the beast's haunches and my cheeks on passing. I stepped back, out of the way of the pounding iron shoes, then forward again, hand ready.

Now, now, Two-Gun pleaded.

Swirling fog rendered him headless, but I knew he lifted his white hat imploringly. He, however, did not know what my hand touched, tucked between spine and belt. I could kill him right here. Wound him, anyway. One throw.

But I let go and pointed toward the wharf and better revenge.

You missed it, I shouted. The opera troupe left without you. On that.

I know, Two-Gun huffed, coming into view for a moment. It was on purpose, trust me.

Ha. I saw who was with them.

Exactly. So you should have. No time to explain, my lovely. But I will, I will.

He jerked the reins and the horse reared up, turned, charged back into the mist.

Come back here, I yelled.

But he was gone. Cries erupted from the grey as he galloped through, and I heard the whoosh of torches waved to keep their bearers from being trampled.

The mists parted again, and there it was. The midnight ship slammed against the dock and reversed its engines, a roar that challenged the clamour of voices on land.

A rope was tied hastily while the crew flung crates onto the boards below. In minutes, the delivery complete, the midnight ship dipped and groaned under the advancing boots of the deputies who took up positions, and waited. I knew what they did not, that there were more than opera players on the tramp steamer that just left.

The navigator's grizzled head appeared at the ship's railing and shouted down at anyone interested that departure would be delayed by three hours. No boarding allowed before then.

The one I was waiting for would also have to wait.

I spotted my bundle of newspapers at the edge of the cargo pile, grabbed it by the rope and dragged it all the way up the dirt road to my shop. Once inside, I heaved the papers onto the wooden table and sat, wrists nudging the edges.

The bundles have arrived irregularly and never yet contained the magic I sought, the clue or set of clues that might have charmed him, through my sudden knowledge of newspapering, or of foreign places. I was a fool, of course. Even now, I delayed reading them, putting off the disappointment for a few moments, enjoying, for those same moments, even the slightest chance, until at last curiosity compelled me to reach behind my back for the knife. Metal sang through air as I dropped the blade into the rope, chopping it in two. A sigh, a groan, the papers gave like a corset opening, their folds an accordion of possibilities: a street, a scene, a scent, all things that I might still have absorbed and, in making them part of me, further bound him to me. I was a fool, indeed.

I flattened the stack of curling pages with the hardened heels of both hands, blackening them, and found amongst the headlines and printed type a map of China. With a lazy finger already stained with printer's ink, I traced along the coastline, drawing first over Canton, further east, Macao, and then Hong Kong, drifting back again and then northward, past Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, finally coming to rest on the city he loved more than any other, more than me, the city that never quite accepted him, with doors that remained closed to him: that perfumed
femme
of concessions, that flower boat of a settlement. Shanghai.

I gazed at the wall above. Familiarity told me there were pencils dangling by strings, shelves with slots of type, wooden frames, tins of ink and solvent. None of it registered, though, as I tried to imagine, instead, couples strolling along the treed streets, the gardens heavy with pale pink roses and azaleas, the women in gauzy dresses, the businessmen with glasses of brandy in smoky bars, the horse races and the cafés with their pastries and cups of chocolate, and the riverfront, a brace of banks and trading offices transplanted from Europe's finest cities, with pillars of stone and arched windows, brass doorways and chandeliers.

And my thoughts sank once more into that other Shanghai.

I lifted the newspaper to my nose, again smelling the green of warm air rubbing against water, the stink of cabbage churning from gutters where something as precious as leaves of cabbage would never be tossed, and my imagination ripened. Entrails from butchered hens. Bare-footed boys pissing behind market stalls. Old beggars trembling with dysentery. Raw boards dropped over putrid waters, creaking with each footstep, releasing into the mix its own smell of oil and rotting wood. Even that place had touched him as I never could.

Three hours was more than enough time to skim through the stack of newspapers. There were many items about the ongoing battles with warlords, but no mention of the leader's absence, or of his presence here in North America. They had kept the secret better than I had. And now he had sailed off on the opera boat.

The body had left without the bodyguard, though, and just as well. Still, Two-Gun seemed strangely unconcerned. Was the leader not his reason for being here?

Two-Gun and Sun. Side-kick and hero. A thief who filled his pockets at people's expense; a politician who filled people's ears with words, intent on raising funds for his dreams of a Republic. Two-Gun & Sun, to me a single corrupting entity, two rotten peas in a festering pod, fouling everything they came in contact with. The town—and one that needed no further corruption. My newspaper. Him, whose scent was still on my skin and in my hair. Because of them, I had lost everything.

I drew the notebook from my pocket and began to record the events of this long and exhausting day, all the while my thoughts drifting to the other two books. Each time I turned their pages I saw wisps of thoughts forgotten these past days, sometimes best forgotten, and yet I knew I would return to them for comfort, for assurance.

*

A knocking at the door stopped me before I was done writing.

I didn't need to ask who it was because a raw voice sounded below my window: Are you up there, my dear girl? I'm here at last.

I sprouted wings, the wings of a bat, and flew down the stairs.

You! I cried, the door banging open into his white bulk. This is your idea of soon? Where have you been for three hours?

My dearest—

I could have sliced you with one throw!

I grabbed the blade from the back of my belt this time, and swiped at the air, hoping to make contact. But he was agile and pranced back.

And where is your horse, now? You rode off without a word of explanation. Left me standing at the docks, wondering, shouting into the fog for you to come back! Just like you did at the opera.

I have much to explain, granted.

Yes you do!